SOUTHPORT, England -- The memory slowly washes over him, like the incoming waves of the gray, neighboring Irish Sea. Which, depending on the time and the tide, is either a quarter-mile from Royal Birkdale, or a solid mile away.
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| It took Justin Rose a long time to return to Royal Birkdale, but he's there and ready to go. (Getty Images) |
Ten years ago this week, the tidal surge for England's Justin Rose was advancing so quickly, sunbathers had to hustle in retreat. Against all odds, he finished fourth at Birkdale as a pink-cheeked 17-year-old, turned pro a few hours later and summarily spent the next two years mired in briny muck.
Who knew his stirring Birkdale baptism would lead to a direct dunk in cold water. Over the next few months, Rose missed his first 21 professional cuts. And after knocking in a 50-yard wedge shot on the last hole for the feel-good birdie of the week, avoided Birkdale for a decade.
Finally, this spring, he made a return trip with pal Adam Scott, as much to vanquish the ghosts of the past as anything, he said.
"The reason I did it, more than actually learning the golf course, it was just time for me to get what happened 10 years ago out of my system, so when I get there in July I can get down to business," Rose said.
Back then, business was booming. The photo of Rose after holing the improbable wedge shot, looking skyward with arms extended as his ball plopped into the cup, was splashed across every British paper. He was an overnight sensation, fresh-scrubbed and English proper, the anti-Amy Winehouse.
It seemed a moment he would embrace forever. Yet what seemed like a launching point became full-blown systemic failure. Liftoff was aborted.
"It was a whole different experience," he said. "Obviously, now I'll go there and finish fourth and do it in a whole different manner, whereas that week it was flying by the seat of your pants, going with the flow."
Or the ebb, as it were. It was the last highlight, really, in a two-year span in which Rose went from anointed to disappointed in the blink of a British eye. Tournaments fell all over themselves to offer exemptions after he turned pro, trying to ride his cresting wave of publicity, but Rose clearly wasn't ready for the big leagues. He missed the cut in all six European Tour events in 1998.
It only got worse from there. Eventually, his phone calls no longer were returned. It was becoming clear that Rose's countryman, Mister Dickens, could have been talking about his Birkdale experience when he penned the phrase, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
"I think it was obviously an incredible week and a fairy-tale ending, and it's much easier for me to sit here, (ninth) in the world, say, and to say I don't regret anything that happened that week," he said. "But I think for a significant period of time, it probably distorted my view of my game and everybody else's view of my game, and probably made things a lot harder.
"But again, it created so many opportunities for me that were good and bad that obviously I learned from, and I think made me stronger and ultimately helped me become a better player, probably because of all that."
Subtract the "probably" and we're in total agreement. Nine years after Birkdale, Rose captured the 2007 European Tour money title and began to play to his potential. Through the travails, he purposely stayed away from Birkdale, even when he was in the neighborhood on the European circuit's developmental tour. The royal reunion could wait.
"I was playing a Challenge Tour event at Formby Hall, close by," he said. "And so much bad stuff had happened I suppose afterwards, I felt like, I didn't want to go in and make too much of a fuss. I just kind of wanted to skulk away quietly, really and not make a nuisance of myself. That's why I waited."
Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy, another promising amateur who turned pro last year at 18, asked for his sage advice, and Rose gave him some blunt answers -- ones he needed to hear from a voice of experience.
"I told him, yeah, listen, turn pro, that's great, no problem," Rose said. "As an amateur, I think that's maybe only a certain level you can get to because you don't play enough tournaments.
"My point of view is don't put too much pressure on yourself too early. That's what I did -- 17 years old, I thought I had to have a tour card and be out playing with the bigger guys all the time. But as long as you're still getting better and better and better, that's ultimately all that matters at that stage, and 17, 18, 19, as long as you're improving, that's all you need to be doing."
His improvement was measured with an eye-dropper over those 21 miserable starts. Now that he's evolved into a flame-broiled world-class player -- he has the third-best odds of winning this week, according to Las Vegas bookmakers -- he can harken back to the darkness as a source of strength. "What I felt like I got out of that experience was just the fighting," he said. "I had to really dig myself out from a pretty big hole that I made for myself, so I guess that's where that comes from and that's where I feel like I've gained from that whole thing."
From hole to whole? I like the lyrical bent. When the time finally came to return to Birkdale, Rose said he was "reticent," a term he used five weeks ago when the Times of London talked him into playing the 18th hole, on camera, for a video posting to be placed on the paper's website. Rose was asked to duplicate the wedge shot and declined.
It was something of a lucky shot, Rose insisted, and he'd look foolish if he didn't knock the ball close to the hole during the recreation. A few yards later, as he walked the hole, Rose relented.
Rose eyeballed the shot: Same club, same distance, to a marker set in the same location as the 72nd-hole flag in 1998. The Times gave him five balls to lob at the marker. The first four were knocked respectably close, and on the fifth try, the ball took a hop and bounced off the marker -- it would have surely gone into the cup, had there been one.
In a spontaneous move, Rose raised his hands and looked skyward -- exactly as he had a decade earlier when standing in the same spot.
A few moments earlier, standing on the 18th tee, he'd tried his best to describe his emotions as he was vocally carried around the course by the English fans, and his last hole as an amateur player.
"The situation being like it was, to finish like that it was going to be a one-in-a-million shot," he said. "I would have to win this tournament for me to overcome that feeling of elation."
Ten years later, despite two seasons in professional Hades, nobody is disputing the latter possibility.